


Vision

by lightningwaltz



Category: Kamen Rider OOO
Genre: Chatting & Messaging, Companionable Snark, Epistolary, Gen, Mid-Canon, Mix of prose and epistolary, Tarot, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-14 23:31:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13018509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: Losing your dream is difficult. Regaining it may be even more difficult.





	Vision

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AkinoAme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkinoAme/gifts).



> As monsters-of-the-week go, I sort of love the concept of the Yummys, and how they are created from someone's strongest vulnerabilities. The episodes where Hina briefly loses (and then regains) her inspiration/dream have especially stuck with me. The whole series, in a way, is built around desire; Eiji having a lack of it, Ankh being driven by it out of necessity. And then there's Hina, in between those two extremes. Ambitions- like her desire to become a fashion designer- aren't just an ego thing. They're also your vision for the future. They're something rather optimistic. The Unicorn Yummy episodes were such a good metaphor for what it feels like when something shakes your faith in your ability to achieve your dream. Often you have to do a lot of reflecting and incorporating new information if you want to return to your ambition. I feel like, in between episodes, Hina probably had to do that herself after the recovery of her dream. I wanted to explore that a bit, and how Ankh and Eiji might interact with her in these moments.
> 
> This fic is prose, with some chatting/texting epistolary interludes. One thing I love about Team OOO is how they all have very strong feelings about each other, but struggle a lot with how to express their emotions. Sometimes text based communication can take the edge off these kinds of heart-to-heart conversations. But OOO also loves to bounce between drama and comedy, so these interludes also became another way to incorporate the characters goofing around into the text. 
> 
> No tarot interpretations were harmed in the writing of this fic.

For Hina, imagination has always been a diluted form of prophecy; the ability to pull a future object from the ether and create it in the present. Writers contained books or movie scripts within them. Composers contained symphonies or catchy pop hits. Architects contained buildings or stadiums or offices. 

And fashion designers contained clothes. Clothes for the runway, clothes for everyday life, clothes to wear at a wedding. The first thing an observer noticed about someone. When Hina had begun sewing her own patterns in earnest, Shingo had asked her again and _how?_ How did she invent that skirt? How did she know to do that with those buttons? How did she come up with that pattern of embroidery? Hina would respond with the truth; late nights of study, late nights of work. Calluses on her hands, and the sensation that she might even have calluses on her brain. Good, respectable answers that don’t get at the heart of things. She doesn’t have the ability to describe those brief, ineffable flashes of inspiration. It would be easier to hold lightning in her palm. 

And ever since her encounter with the Unicorn Yummy, the brief erasure of her dream left a scar. Currently, she is staring at one of her latest patterns. She has cut out the cloth, threaded the sewing machine, but she can’t make her hands move. In the hours when her dream was gone, she hadn’t felt loss. Instead had felt overwhelming shame; Maybe she wasn’t meant to have ambitions so big and improbable. This world was capricious, and success was not guaranteed in the arts. Maybe she was always bound to lose this dream, and the Unicorn Yummy had tried to do what the world intended to do to her all along. This shame has not lessened at all.

The soft ping of a text message is a thread through the din. In a robotic daze she picks up her phone, clicks on the link from Satonaka, and downloads the app. 

-

**Welcome and happy birthday! You are warmly invited to change this placeholder name and have a personalized title for your group chat experience.**  
_**@SatonakaErika** has invited **@GotoShintaro** , **@DateAkira** , **@HinoEiji** , **@IzumiHina** , and **@Ankh**_

**Ankh:** Why is my name last?

**SatonakaErika:** President Kougami launched this Kougami chat app today, and I was tasked with inviting five individuals to use it at least once in hopes that they become fans and get others to use it. 

**SatonakaErika:** Since you’ve all clicked over to the app, I’ve fulfilled that request. You can change the group name, your name, and the names of each other. You can have one-on-one chats, or other group chats. That’s about all you need to know. 

**SatonakaErika:** I probably will minimize this screen and never use this app again. Do whatever you want with it. 

**DateAkira:** ヾ(ﾟ∀ﾟ○)ﾂ三ヾ(●ﾟ∀ﾟ)ﾉ.+:｡(ﾉ･ω･)ﾉﾞ guys, guys, guys!!! we’re her friends, apparently!!!

**HinoEiji:** whoa, that emoticon

**DateAkira:** : (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ i know!!

**IzumiHina:** i like it!

**GotoShintaro:** You never use emoticons when we text. What are you doing? Why aren’t you resting?

**DateAkira:** goto-chan, im on bed rest for a few days, and there are exciting new buttons for me to push in this exciting new app. one of them has an emoticon dictionary. there are thousands of them in here. ＼（＠￣∇￣＠）／

**IzumiHina:** there are! ﾟ･✿ヾ╲(｡◕‿◕｡)╱✿･ﾟ 

**GotoShintaro:** Okay. 

**DateAkira:** hasn’t anyone told you about those scientific studies about how ending a sentence with correction punctuation when you’re texting means you’re angry. 

**GotoShintaro:** Right. 

**SatonakaErika:** This doesn’t mean you’re my friends. It does mean I thought you five were the most likely to click a suspicious link in a text you had no way of anticipating.

**DateAkira:** ouch harsh but fair 

**GotoShintaro:** Hold on. I get what you’re implying, but I was clicking a link, sent to my work phone, by a work colleague. How is that risky behavior?

**SatonakaErika:** Like I said, do what you want with it. Delete it from your phone. Use it all the time. All I had to accomplish on my end was getting you to open the link. Since you have all done that, it’s time for my skin care regime. 

**Ankh:** But why was my name last?

**HinoEiji:** should’ve clicked the link faster (¬‿¬)

**DateAkira:** YES!! let’s all overuse emojis until we get sick of them!!

**Ankh:** You can’t know that’s the reason

**HinoEiji:** you can’t know it’s not the reason

**Ankh:** Ugh

**DateAkira:** a little concerned that all of you in japan are still awake

**Ankh:** who cares?

**DateAkira:** i care! getting enough sleep is important for us humans. which is what you are right now.

**DateAkira:** @GotoShintaro you should go to bed too

**DateAkira:** (@ErikaSatonaka, you too)

**GotoShintaro:** I’m just finishing up an assignment. It’s fine. 

**IzumiHina:** i’m sewing 

 

_**@Ankh** has changed the group’s title to **Enthusiasts for Boring Shit**_

 

**DateAkira:** hahahahahahaha

**IzumiHina:** oh please

**HinoEiji:** lol 

**DateAkira:** you know that reminds me

 

_**@DateAkira** has changed @GotoShintaro’s name **@Goto-chan**_

 

**Ankh:** heh

**IzumiHina:** lolll why do i feel like this option will cause a lot of problems

**Goto-chan:** EXCUSE ME. 

**Goto-chan:** Okay, you had your fun. Time to fix things.

**Goto-chan:** … It says you can’t change your own name. 

**IzumiHina:** oh noooo

**Goto-chan:** @ErikaSatonaka

**Goto-chan:** @ErikaSatonaka, President Kougami needs to know about this design bug

**SatonakaErika:** Oh, that’s a feature not a bug

**Goto-chan:** Excuse me?

**SatonakaErika:** The philosophy is that, by having your friends choose your handle for you, it fosters in-jokes and other types of bonding. 

**SatonakaErika:** He also is aware of the fondness everyone has for mocking their friends’ typos. This will encourage everyone to be a bit more careful with their spelling so that they won’t get a new handle that features their typo. This is because the Kougami Foundation values good spelling and grammar.

**SatonakaErika:** Don’t @ me again. Or, I guess you can @ me. But tomorrow is my day off and I’m going to sleep for 8.5 hours. Goodnight. 

**Goto-chan:** Great. 

**Goto-chan:** Anyone willing to change me to something else?

 

_**@Ankh** has changed @Goto-chan’s name **@Pet Rock**_

 

**Pet Rock:** OKAY. NO.

**DateAkira:** HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

**Pet Rock:** THAT’S NOT WHAT I HAD IN MIND. 

-

**Team OOO**  
_**IzumiHina** has invited **@HinoEiji** and **@Ankh**_

**Ankh:** And why should I participate if my name is last again?

**HinoEiji:** once again, you need to be faster

**Ankh:** Whatever. That’s just a theory. Why did you start this group, Hina? 

**IzumiHina:** i don’t know…

**IzumiHina:** well…

**Ankh:** Are you trying to be suspenseful? 

**IzumiHina:** date-san and goto-san will probably have their own chat. maybe a group with satonaka-san. why shouldn’t we? 

**HinoEiji:** it’s a good idea! president kougami probably has his own cloud thing that’s better than what our cell phones get. 

**HinoEiji:** so it will be easy to reach each other this way. 

**Ankh:** Eiji, I’m in the same room as you. As in the literal same room. On the same bunk bed. 

 

_**@Ankh** has changed the group’s title to **The Completely Pointless Chat Group**_

 

-

Somehow that stings, even though it’s completely expected behavior. Hina clicks out of the chat app, and turns her phone face down. 

Shingo has been away a lot longer than her dream. True, it’s a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things. Still, she thinks her soul has grown around this ambiguous loss the way roots grow around stones or break through concrete. 

For the millionth time, she wants to walk to Ankh and see her brother’s eyes, her brother’s smile. Hear his laughter and advice. He had been here for a few short days, but he’s slipped away again. 

When- she can’t allow herself to think _if_ \- when Shingo returns for good she will be as stymied by that as she is by the return of her inspiration? Will she forget how to speak with him, just as she feels crushed by the weight of creativity? 

_I’d like Ankh to stay, too. Somehow. Despite everything. Despite tonight._

It’s not the millionth time she’s thought that. It might be one of the first times she’s thought that in so many words. Consciously, rather than subconsciously. But she knows it won’t be the last. All of this will hurt no matter what, and she doesn’t know, anymore, if she can continue to turn to sewing for comfort. 

Hina steps away from the sewing machine, turns off the lights, and gets into bed. There’s a few soft pings from her phone, but she just lies there in the darkness. 

-

**Chat: @HinoEiji and @IzumiHina**

**HinoEiji:** idk what ankh’s deal was tonight

**HinoEiji:** well, other than ankh being ankh

**HinoEiji:** i liked your idea though!

-

**Chat: @Ankh and @IzumiHina**

**Ankh:** It’s fine. 

**Ankh:** You’re probably right. 

**Ankh:** Who even knows what the Kougami Foundation is planning. 

**Ankh:** Having a private chat room makes tactical sense.

-

 

Eiji always enjoys the hour or so after they finish up at Cous Coussier. The world does not depend on managing customers, navigating several orders at once, or writing down byzantine requests. No one lives or dies based on his actions here. There’s just a tempered, comfortable satisfaction that feels reminds him of winning a battle. Life has torn ambition out of him, but he can enjoy the next best thing; accomplishment. 

Today, Chiyoko had settled on a Cajun theme for the restaurant, and it’s more nostalgic than expected. About a decade ago Eiji had traveled with his father to the French Quarter in New Orleans. While his father had stayed in the hotel’s conference room (emerging once or twice for catered beignets in the lobby), Eiji had dived right into the height of tourist madness. Ghost tour after ghost tour. Steamboats on the Mississippi. Waiting in lines that stretched around the corner just to get gumbo. He’d come home weighed down with souvenirs, and his father had just sighed. At one point he’d picked up a packet of tarot cards. There’d been a tiny explanatory packet inside, with pages as thin as onion skin. He’d haphazardly taught himself how to read those cards from that. Over these nomadic years, Eiji has done his fair share of paid tarot readings for tourists. It was often enough for his next meal. He’s also done his fair share of free tarot readings for people who seemed like they needed them. 

Right now there’s a packet of tarot cards on Cous Coussier’s display. The box is appropriately beaten up. Eiji watches as Hina pauses from cleaning to pick it up, and free the cards. She flips through them, but he’s not sure she’s really seeing the cards. Her eyes have been so worried lately when she thinks no one is watching. 

“I can do a reading for you?” 

She doesn’t jump at all, even though she must have been startled. “Really?” 

“Yeah, it’s no trouble at all.” 

They head to one of the tables meant for two. Eiji shuffles in earnest while Hina lights the tea lights Chiyoko set out for ambience. 

“Okay, we can just do a general reading, or you can ask about something specific.”

The reflected candle flames swim in her eyes. He expects her to ask about her brother, or the future of the world. 

“I need to know what to do about sewing.” Her voice is soft, a thread of noise under the clattering from the kitchen. 

It’s Eiji’s turn to be surprised. Until, very abruptly, he isn’t at all. The Unicorn Yummy had been a particularly haunting encounter. And the loss of all motivation was a horrible thing. 

He doesn’t make a big deal of it. He just fans the deck over the table and urges her to pick whichever cards she feels drawn towards. Some people do this very slowly, their hands shaking. Hina plucks them out in rapid succession, like she’s pulling off a bandage. 

There’s a prevalence of cards from the suite of swords. A suite of thoughts, ideas, ambition. Hina’s face goes a bit white when she draws the eight one; a blindfolded woman, stuck in a field of blades. She stares at it for a long time, even as she pulls more cards from the deck. Eiji is more struck by the appearance of the High Priestess and the Hermit, both. Has she withdrawn that much? 

At least he can sigh with relief when she pulls the Three of Cups as the very last card. 

As Eiji begins to interpret for her, he’s struck by how very unqualified he is to give anyone advice on happiness. But he tries. Tarot cards are broad (some might say vague) enough that their meanings snap together like puzzle pieces. He tells her she’s suffered a shock that’s left her mired in self doubt. He tells her it’s healthy to withdraw, re-evaluate, focus on how to cope with her new reality. The people that care for her will always be waiting. 

Yes, the meanings really are like puzzle pieces. Wide ranging ideas that could apply to anyone. Anyone at all. 

Eiji is rusty, and very glad she hasn’t wasted her money paying for this. All the same, Hina sits in silence for a long time, looking down at the card. There’s a furrow in her brow. A stubborn tilt to her mouth. 

“Thank you,” she says. And, once again, Eiji is comforted by an accomplishment. 

-

 

**The Completely Pointless Chat Group**

**Ankh:** Were you two really doing tarot? 

**HinoEiji:** why are you asking through here

**HinoEiji:** we’re in the same room, as you said

**Ankh:** Because she’s not physically here and I want to shame you both

**Ankh:** At least do runes or something if you want to waste time. 

**Ankh:** They look cooler. 

**IzumiHina:** you know what’s interesting

**IzumiHina:** the fool card kind of dresses like eiji-kun

**IzumiHina:** not that you’re a fool!!!!! That’s not what I meant!!

**Ankh:** Hah! 

**HinoEiji:** lol, i like being compared to a symbol people have used for millennia to think about important life stuff!!

**HinoEiji:** it’s fine!

**Ankh:** That deck you used is barely a hundred years old. Don’t get ahead of yourself. 

**Ankh:** You aren’t making use of some medieval wisdom shit

**IzumiHina:** lol are you googling it 

**Ankh:** I was literally locked away in the 13th century

**Ankh:** If you want *~authentic medieval~* wisdom just ask me

**HinoEiji:** @IzumiHina jsyk, ankh is mad because he has a rip in his shirt 

**HinoEiji:** So just ignore him

**IzumiHina:** i can come fix it in the morning

**Ankh:** Seriously?

**IzumiHina:** yeah

-

**Chat: @HinoEiji and @IzumiHina**

**IzumiHina:** i really do like the fool card’s design

**HinoEiji:** haha

**HinoEiji:** get chiyoko-san to do a tarot theme some day

**IzumiHina:** ohhh

**IzumiHina:** yes maybe!

**IzumiHina:** is it weird i like 8 of swords art even if it’s sad

**HinoEiji:** nah. its always felt very… true to me

**IzumiHina:** that’s when you know art has hit on something real

 

-

 

Ankh doesn’t really know if he actually expects Hina to show up. And yet, there she is, bright and early on their doorstep a little after Eiji went out for a walk. 

It’s not a very auspicious start. He perches on the edge of a chair, ready to take flight (even if, realistically, he knows that he’d just crash land into the floor.) He and Hina have never coexisted well alone together. And invoking his past in the group chat had been a mistake. Last night’s dreams had been a landscape of corpses and bloody eye sockets. The one mercy is that his senses are always muted in nightmares, like they were in Greeed form. He had woken up before the dawn, drank down some citrus-y juice, and tried to let the miracle of taste be a distraction. 

She’s a decent enough distraction, too. He can tell when Hina is out to accomplish something. She takes on a certain posture, and isn’t ever flustered by his jibes and taunts. 

When Ankh hands Hina the shirt, she places it on the table and spends a long time staring down at it. Tracing her finger over the tear. The pause is so charged, that he comes very close to interrogating her about it. From what he’s seen, Shingo wears resolutely bland clothing that is probably difficult to repair. However, Hina’s clothing has more variety than that. And he’s seen that she can bring her designs to life. This hesitation, then, has nothing to do with a lack of ability. 

“My shirt isn’t a tarot card,” he says. “There’s no meaning to it.” 

Sometimes Hina looks at him like she’s trying to scrape away his demeanor and find Shingo within. Even at his most cantankerous, he recognizes that this is fair. 

Sometimes- like now- she’s looking directly at Ankh.

“There’s always meaning in how we choose to present ourselves.” 

“Oh, so you believe in Eiji’s lucky underwear?” 

Hina doesn’t even look at him as she threads the needle. “I believe it means something to him.” 

He hates that she’s making him ponder all the others they know, and what their clothing says. Chiyoko and her bright but deceptively sensible clothing. Gotou and how he clearly irons his clothing every five minutes. Date’s endless supply of t-shirts and jeans, and how they contrast with Satonaka’s limitless supply of outfits. 

He _really_ hates how her sewing draws the eye. Hina’s strength could probably smash through concrete walls. And yet here she is; drawing delicate thread through clothing, fixing the places where it fell apart. It takes dedication and preternatural focus, or the end results will look ridiculous.

Ankh hasn’t really ever watched her sew, but he knows it won’t be ridiculous. 

“This is my first time sewing since the Unicorn Yummy.” She says it so casually that Ankh knows she’s weighed how to say that. Just those words, just that nonchalant style of emphasis.

It takes several long moments to place what she means. That was several battles ago, several minor disasters ago. Shingo had made a reappearance before returning to the void. “Oh, is that what you’ve been moping about?” 

“I don’t think I’ve been moping.” 

No. She hasn’t been. Hina can get extravagantly sad, but she also keeps going. Maybe it’s an Izumi sibling trait. It feels encoded in the DNA of this body Ankh is occupying. 

“You got your dream back, though.” 

“Having it gone felt weird though. It was like… When I didn’t care about it, it suddenly seemed ridiculous to me. I didn’t know why I’d put energy into something so meaningless. Also people sometimes step all over people to achieve their ambitions in the art world. What if I become like that?” Hina finishes with Ankh’s shirt, busying herself with the thread in a way he can’t follow at all. Then she hands it over. “All those thoughts are hard to shake.” 

He thinks he should be angry at the way she frets over having something crucial returned to her, when Ankh’s Core Medals are incomplete. Instead, he finds himself wondering what will come after he retrieves all of them. After that initial elation fades, what will he do? He knows it won’t be enough to consume the world with his five senses. He never knows what will be enough for him, anymore. 

“I can’t decide who is better at making more trouble for yourself: You or Eiji.” 

Hina doesn’t say anything. She’s still looking for him, and not for her brother. 

-

**Chat: @Ankh and @IzumiHina**

**Ankh:** Okay look

**Ankh:** First of all, you’re too much of a worrywart to ever turn into some sadistic fashionista

**Ankh:** Second, it gets freaking cold in the winter sometimes. 

**Ankh:** People do actually need clothes

**IzumiHina:** what if i told you im sewing an outfit right now

**Ankh:** I don’t know. ARE you sewing something right now? 

**IzumiHina:** yes

**IzumiHina:** because I wanted to do it

**Ankh:** Good. Sometimes it’s good to do things because you want to do them. 

**Ankh:** Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.


End file.
